Google on Thursday announced a new way for users to sign-in to their accounts by letting them take a selfie video.
The selfie for sign-in, per the tech giant, is another option on top of existing recovery methods to log in to an account, including an email address or a phone number. The idea is to use a video selfie as a way to regain access if a user ever gets locked out or doesn’t have access to their usual phone or computer.
As part of the process, users are required to set up a selfie video by just looking into the device’s camera and completing a “few short, guided head movements” to capture their face from different angles.
Should users have any trouble signing in to their accounts with the selfie method at a later stage, they can just take another selfie to sign back in. “Selfie video compares the new video to the one you set up to confirm it is really you and help you get back into your account,” Google said in a blog post shared with The Hacker News.
The tech giant also emphasized that the feature is entirely opt-in and users are in full control of the feature, adding it can be deleted from the account at any time.
According to a help document, the feature is designed with three key purposes –
- Help users back into their account if they can’t sign in.
- Unlock more features or services, when prompted, by verifying a user is a real person and they haven’t violated Google’s policies.
- Allow users to create an avatar to create AI content that looks and sounds like themselves.
That said, the selfie video for sign-in option is not available for Google Workspace accounts, Child accounts, and Google Accounts enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program.
“You can’t add a selfie video while you’re locked out of your account or in the account recovery process,” Google also noted.
In the event a user is unable to sign in to their account, they may be prompted to record a short video of their face to confirm the account belongs to them. The newly captured video is then compared to the selfie video added by the user to their account. If the faces match, their identity will be verified and allow them to recover access to the account.
“The selfie video you saved on your Google Account will be matched against the selfie video you take to sign in to your account,” Google cautions. “If there are significant changes to your facial appearance, update the selfie video you’ve saved on your account.”
Besides storing the selfie video in encrypted format at rest, it’s used only for the purpose of helping users log in to their accounts, unless they opt to share for other use cases. The data can “help ongoing efforts to develop and improve facial recognition, age estimation, and other verification methods that may use your physical features or movement,” per Google.
Users can change this setting at any time by following the steps below –
- In the Google Account, go to the Selfie video page (myaccount.google[.]com/video-verification)
- Turn Improve Google services (optional) on or off
The disclosure comes as Google Cloud Fraud Defense has announced a new hand gesture verification system that asks users to perform simple hand gestures through their device camera to complete reCAPTCHA checks, marking a departure from traditional image-based challenges to tackle automated bot traffic.
The liveness detection technology prompts users to make basic hand movements while their camera is turned on with an aim to extract hand landmark data. This includes 21 hand-knuckle coordinates.
“The videos are never associated with a user’s identity and are deleted after the verification process,” the company said. “Google does not retain any images or videos of a user’s hand gestures beyond the verification process or use the data for any other purpose.”
